There’s a whole lot of buzz around International Women’s Day today. It’s exciting and I feel like there’s a new feminist wave in the making with all the discussion around empowering girls and also raising boys differently. Think “It’s All Right to Cry” from the Free to Be … You and Me album of the ’70s — an important influence on my youth.

To pay tribute to International Women’s day, I’m flagging a few noteworthy webpages and also a STEM-related video. I know it’s a bit of a “cheat” blog post, but there is so much rich content and there are many interesting perspectives to ponder. This quote on CBC’s Writers and Company webpage that features an interview with Gloria Steinem says a lot:

“We were so occupied with trying to raise our daughters more like our sons that we probably are only now seeing how much we need to raise our sons more like our daughters – so that both of them can be whole people.” – Gloria Steinem

Busy, busy, busy! It’s that time of year. Ninety percent of my holiday shopping takes place in bookstores. For children, adults, avid readers, reluctant readers, and people with myriad interests there is always something that resonates with every name on my list. I also like to promote and support Canadian authors, illustrators, and publishers. By reading Quill & Quire, listening to The Next Chapter on CBC Radio, and noodling around online, I can do some pre-shopping research that makes the actual trip to the bookstore much quicker. I often call my local bookstore and order the titles I know I want. I also love poking around bookstores, browsing the shelves and seeing what catches my eye.

If your local bookstore doesn’t have the book you are looking for, you can always place an order. Most books will arrive in 7 to 10 days, depending on the distributor, but your bookselling will advise you. If you have any children ages 9 to 13 on your list, check out The Women’s Hall of Fame Series. Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs and Dazzling Women Designers are my two most recent titles. A special thank you to my local independent bookstore, Novel Idea, in Kingston for stocking several copies of these book on the nonfiction shelf. Each book features ten profiles of ordinary women who do the extraordinary through their determination, passion, courage, and vision. I’d love to hear if any kids are your list are inspired by these stories of real people from today and yesterday, from Canada, the U.S., and beyond.

And lastly, I promise it won’t be so long until my next blog posting! It’s been an eventful fall and too many things are pulling me away from my writing desk. Happily, 2015 promises to bring me more time for writing. I’m excited about this and really looking forward to what lies ahead.

All the best for a very happy holiday. Celebrate great books!

P.S.: When you’re stumped on which book to buy for a child, ask a librarian–they are the best resources ever!

I’m grateful that my own kids, both teenagers, are avid readers. My mom says, “you can’t go wrong, if you’re a reader.” It’s true that books can help you soldier through some of the challenges life throws your way, giving you a wonderful escape and a reprieve from the hum-drum and the ordinary. My kids have become accustomed to my taking an interest in what they are reading. I ask, good naturedly, I’m sure, “is that Canadian?” They roll their eyes in response and groan, “Mom!” Somewhat exasperated by my relentless advocating for Canadian literary talent, they, like their avid-reader peers, often gravitate to the blockbuster books: Divergent, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, the Lunar Chronicles, and His Dark Materials. I’m always delighted when a Canadian title makes it into their stack of books and receives their rapt attention. The Bone books, the Breadwinner series, Seraphina, the Silverwing Saga, the Agency series and various titles by Janet McNaughton, Sharon McKay, Budge Wilson, Janet Wilson. My eldest daughter shelves her books according to “awesome girls” and “pretty covers” on Goodreads. It great to know that strong female characters are high on her list.

Here are her stats on where the stories she’s read in the past year took place:

USA: 19 (one had a scene that took place in Canada)

England: 11

Continental Europe: 12

Africa: 1

Asia: 2

Fictional land: 4

The Opinion piece in the Fall 2014 issue of Canadian Children’s Book News, entitled “Who will write our stories?,” really got me thinking more about the value of home-grown books for kids. It’s important that kids have books to read that speak to the places they live and the sort of everyday reality they face. And it’s great for kids to have access to local writers through book talks in schools and public libraries. The author of this article, Nadia L. Hohn, is an educator in Toronto, and also an author with three forthcoming children’s books (with Rubicon Publishing and Groundwood Books). Her heritage is Caribbean Canadian. Hohn refers to a blog post by author Dr. Zetta Elliott, entitled “Black Canadian children’s literature ~ the stats.” This post contains an excellent list of Canadian books about black children; it includes books written by Caucasian authors, a trend that keeps Hohn awake at night. In the same way that it’s important to nurture new Canadian talent in the sphere of children’s and young adult literature, so too is it vital to make sure all our voices are heard. Diversity in and among our authors and illustrators is sure to extend the reach of our literature across racial, cultural, economic, religious, and social boundaries.

In writing three books in The Women’s Hall of Fame Series (Second Story Press), I had the good fortune to to research, write, and publish biographical profiles that feature women from different parts of the world and from different times in history. I sought out talented and exceptional women to highlight and revere as excellent role models. In Amazing Women Athletes, I wrote about tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams. Recently in Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs, I featured Susan Mashibe, a Tanzanian aviation entrepreneur and pilot. My own background and experiences often differed greatly from those I featured, which meant I had to research thoroughly and not only about the individual’s life, but also about the culture in which they were raised. I find this kind of research fascinating and it’s no surprise that I also love to travel and learn about other cultures. I’m sure my own experiences backpacking in India and other parts of Asia have had a huge influence on the way I write and perceive the world. But, having said all that, there is certainly a special place that must be nurtured in fiction, especially, for the voices that have lived and breathed the experiences of various cultural backgrounds. When marginalized groups, such as blacks, indigenous peoples, and the physically challenged, tell their own stories in their words and when these stories are published and released into the world, more children will smile and read with a “hunger” — as Nadia Hohn recalls she did as a child when she discovered books by African American authors.

Hohn wrote, “I didn’t want to become the ‘black’ representative, or some shining example of diversity. What I wanted, needed really, was to become an integral and valued part of the mosaic that I saw around me.”

I’m excited to share with you the recent posting of a video interview, recorded back in May, but released on July 22, 2014. This was during Canadian Children’s Book Week and the location was the beautiful H.T. Coutts Library, University of Alberta. It was a great thrill to be asked by the talented team at the Coutts Library. My apologies for the tardy posting. I was away for a bit on holidays and then it was the back-to-school blitz.

It’s official. The Bank Street College Centre for Children’s Literature has released its “Best Books” list for 2014 and Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs (published Sept. 2013) is on the list! I know I mentioned this in an earlier post, but now there is a link to the pdf for all the age categories. Click “Nine to Twelve” and scroll through to page 14 to find my book. I encourage you to poke around and explore the lists for the various age ranges. It is indeed a great honour to have Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs on this list. Thank you to the reviewers and all the committee members.

Speaking of feeling honoured and grateful, I’m still reeling from the whirlwind Canadian Children’s Book Week tour, though it wrapped up a month ago. I loved the opportunity to be a part of the national celebrations and to meet children in a sampling of schools throughout Alberta.

One of the highlights of my trip to Alberta was meeting Nicole Robertson in person. I featured Nicole as one of ten female entrepreneurs in my book Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs. Although I’d interviewed her over the phone, I hadn’t had the opportunity to meet her face to face. As owner of Muskwa Productions, Nicole sends good news stories about Aboriginal people to mainstream media outlets. She’s an optimist through and through and is very much in touch with Indigenous issues. She’s also highly skilled at photography, videography, presenting, and consulting. Like all the entrepreneurs in my book, Nicole is overbrimming with passion for her work. She’s a lovely, warm person and it was such a pleasure to chat with her. You can read more about Nicole in this past post here — and also in my book, of course!

Me with Nicole Roberson (profiled in Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs) at the Delta hotel in Calgary

TD Canadian Children’s Book Week 2014 took place from May 4 to May 10. Here are some reflections from my whirlwind tour in Alberta.

Inside state-of-the-art classrooms and spacious libraries, students listened attentively and volunteered eagerly. “If you weren’t a writer, what would you be?” they asked. Young children peered up at me with delightful grins when I kicked my legs high to the beat of my lollypop drum. Students grasped concepts readily and impressed me with their insightful comments.

My five-day, 17-talk tour began in Airdrie, a fast-growing suburb of Calgary. Next, I flew to Edmonton and drove southwest, where I visited schools in Thorsby and Calmar. Then, after a day of talks in Hinton, I was treated to a spectacular, snow-capped mountain tour—complete with sightings of deer—before venturing back to Edmonton. The University of Alberta hosted an interview and two talks. I finished my tour that afternoon at a nearby school. It was exhausting, but thrilling, and immensely satisfying. I’m very grateful.

At a rural school, I’m told whispers of “the author’s here!” filled the hallway. Teachers dashed out of classrooms to grab cameras to capture students putting on costumes and thinking fast on their feet. During my research-focused talk, when I admitted to having a soft spot for handwritten letters, one girl said, “Ohh, I really love letters, too!” Afterwards, young children hugged me and older kids lined up to chat and ask more questions. Teachers and librarians bought lots of books.

Now back in Ontario, I have many fond, heartwarming memories, and I’m missing that majestic Alberta sky . . . .

Thank you

I’m grateful to The Children’s Book Centre, TD, Canada Council, my tour coordinator Richard Chase, and all the enthusiastic readers and writers I met along the way.

I just found out that Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs has earned a spot on the Bank Street Books “Best Children’s Books of the Year, 2014” list. I’m so pleased! The Bank Street College of Education, based in New York, New York, has a Children’s Book Committee, which was founded in 1909. This committee “fostered a growing awareness of the emotional needs of children, and of how books might affect children’s feelings of themselves and the world around them.” They began by publishing a pamphlet, but as time went by, they developed lists, reviews, a magazine, and now a booklet. The 2014 list is not yet available on the Web, but I’ll be sure to provide a link as soon as it is. In the meantime, you can read more about the work of Bank Street Books at these links:

Other good news: shoots are finally started to sprout in my garden and one clump of snowdrops is in full bloom. After a long, cold winter, it looks like spring is finally making a sunny appearance. Happy spring!

I have lots to share this week. First of all, there is a great review of Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs in Children’s Materials (CM), which is published by the Manitoba Library Association at the University of Manitoba. Their reviews are lengthy and comprehensive — great for authors who want valuable feedback — and great for busy teachers and parents who want all the details. I must admit I had to chuckle once while reading the review, that is, once I calmed down. (Note: Reading a review of your work is a nail-biting, teeth-gnashing, heart-pit-a-patting, emotionally fraught event, where you jump to the end to read the concluding statement and determine if overall it’s a thumbs-up, down, or sideways critique. And through it all, you’ve got to remain somewhat detached and “be tough,” and “strong,” and “resilient.” They aren’t critiquing you, they are critiquing your work. Oh yes, but your work is what you are passionate about, so it might as well be you. But don’t take it personally, yadda yadda.)

Ehem. So, yes, it’s an impressive report and I’m really pleased at what reviewer Julie Chychota pointed out. She did such a careful read of the book and picked up some very nuanced detailed. It’s an honour to have an expert engage so thoroughly in the work you’ve created. Books take a long time to write (obviously!) and it’s appropriate when the reviewer takes time to investigate the finer points of the text. What made me laugh was that she said

“not to mention the 56 sidebars, an amount that surpasses the record of 46 previously set by Bryant in Dazzling Women Designers.”

OMG, I had no idea I was a record setter and a record breaker! It’s kind of interesting to know this about the exact number and the comparison. I had no idea. I included sidebars whenever it seemed appropriate and fitting to do so. I’m glad the reviewer appreciated that these help contextualize the content. I do love sidebars for the way they offer some fresh asides to the running text and break up the design. Also I like that they add a deeper dimension to the content, which is the contextualization part.

Chychota went on to say:

“exemplary text”

“writes cleanly and neatly”

“Bryant’s clear, coherent, and conversational style will facilitate readers’ comprehension, just as it did in Amazing Women Athletes and Dazzling Women Designers.”

The review finishes with a lovely pitch for the series as a whole:

“As a 2013 video by The Representation Project counsels, “Women and girls deserve better representation in the media and in our larger culture” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NswJ4kO9uHc). With its “The Women’s Hall of Fame Series,” Second Story Press seeks to cultivate in young readers a deeper awareness of and appreciation for women leaders. School and public libraries should acquire the affordable series as part of their collections as a way to perpetuate positive representations.”

That video is well worth watching, and shows we still have lots of important work to do, people.

OK, my next share is from the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s March 2014 Newsletter. To honour International Women’s Day, the staff at the CCBC have put together an extensive list to commemorate this theme. Then, in the “Author Corner,” Kate Abrams features an interview with me. What an honour it was to be asked for my opinion on must-reads for girls today. Admittedly, that was a doozy of a question, and one I pondered over for quite some time.

Recently I attended the Ontario Library Association’s “Superconference 2014” at the Metro Convention Centre in Toronto. I had a 10:00 a.m. book-signing gig at the Second Story Press booth. When I first walked into the lounge for authors and presenters, I saw fellow Second Story Press author/illustrator Janet Wilson and had a quick chat with her. Then I found the booth and met some very welcoming Second Story employees. There was a great turn-out for the signing. Hey, what teachers won’t line up for a free, signed copy of a book for their school library?! I enjoyed chatting with teachers and teacher-librarians. One funny moment was signing a book for a teacher from QECVI, one of the three fantastic downtown public high schools in Kingston, where I live. After about 20 minutes, the stack of give-away books were gone. I enjoyed checking out the books Second Story Press had on display. Wow! There were so many books that I wanted to read. Every Day Is Malala Day is the first book in a new series through Plan Canada. This looks like a great partnership for SSP.

Later, walking through the aisles, and popping in and out of booths by various publishers and organizations, I bumped into author/illustrator Patricia Storms who I worked with at KNOW magazine, but had never met. I also had a chance to meet author Marsha Skrypuch and caught a glimpse of author Lizann Flatt while she was busy signing books. I don’t often travel into Toronto, but events like this are a lot of fun to attend, largely because of the enthusiastic, book-loving attendees and the who’s who of author, illustrators, and publishers moseying about. I bought a book called In Those Days: Collected Writings on Arctic History by Kenn Harper and picked up a catalogue for “Inhabit Media, an Inuit-owned publishing company that aims to promote and preserve the stories, knowledge, and talent of northern Canada.” After interviewing Nicole Robertson for PhenomenalFemale Entrepreneurs, and then the heightened media attention around Aboriginal issues during last year’s Idle No More campaign, I’ve become increasingly interested in indigenous issues and stories.

Signing book at the OLA Superconference 2014 in Toronto

About a week ago, I made the happy discovery that my book Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs is on the Resource Links Year’s Best 2013 List. A reviewer who published a December critique says, “I was impressed with the conversational tone that still conveyed a lot of information.” She added that the “writing style makes the text easy to read and understand.”

That’s all for today, folks! It’s back to preparing for TD Canadian Children’s Book Week. I’m getting very excited about travelling to Alberta!

I’ve been working on my book talks for TD Canadian Children’s Book Week 2014. I know it’s not happening until May, but time is flying these days and I don’t want to be caught short. While researching, I came across this article called “How Indian Women Are “Leaning In.” The cool thing about it is that it brings together Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook) and Naina Lal Kidwai (HSBC), both featured in my book Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs. I thought it was pretty neat that another writer linked these two women who come from such different backgrounds and work in different industries. It turns out that the article was adapted from the Indian version of Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In, and it was written by Naina Lal Kidwai, not a journalist. Now that is very cool, indeed. Naina, as you may know from my book, was the first Indian woman to graduate from Harvard Business School — in 1982.

On another note, I just finished reading a novel called One Year in Coal Harbour by Polly Horvath. It’s the long-awaited sequel to the Newbery Honor Book Everything on a Waffle. What a fabulous, fabulous book! I devoured it in a day. I loved the protagonist, Primrose Squarp, and the interesting adult characters, including Miss Honeycut and Miss Bowzer. The author has a great feel for her target audience. There are some serious and heavy themes: foster kids, the death of two dogs, poverty issues, problems with “friends.” But there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments to off-set the sober moments. Horvath’s images are utterly unique. She writes about a “bedrock of multiplication” (p. 2) and waves that are “bunched up and wrinkled” (p. 3). At one point Primrose’s mom recalls a “lady who lives on the outside of town” and writes poems about cats saying that “being a writer was like being a cross between a ditchdigger and a pit pony” (p. 20). Wow.

One Year in Coal Harbour by Polly Horvath, Toronto, ON: Groundwood, 2012. Books / House of Anansi

I was continuously amazed at the range of vocabulary Horvath used. Page 7 offers up “complicit,” page 8 features the word “staccato,” and by page 25 the word “ersatz” stands out as an anomaly in books. This is a book for middle schoolers. Then — I kid you not — on “heretofore” makes a bold appearance (p. 33) and later “ululation” (p. 128). Yes, I starting collecting these lovely words, jotting them down as I read.

A foster parent named Evie, who is wonderfully nurturing and down-to-earth, has a thing for putting mini marshmallows in everything she serves kids and teens. By the book’s end, I figured I’d never look at mini marshmallows in the same way. Interspersed through the book are recipes that hail from the 1970s: “Penuche with Mini Marshmallows,” “Gussied-Up Cinnamon Toast,” and “Polynesian Jell-O Salad,” to single out a few.

You can find "trade" books by Jill Bryant at your favourite local bookstore.
Just ask the bookseller to order them if they aren't on the shelf.
Alternatively, shop online at Chapters Indigo.ca or Amazon.ca.